


we made these memories for ourselves

by arachnistar



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post S4 Finale, start of s5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 10:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11849457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: He blinks and she watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows and then his eyes dart to her before settling elsewhere again. “You – you got it framed?“





	we made these memories for ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> Melissa Fumero posted that story on Instagram with the desk photo, my heart stopped, and I immediately dashed off to write more words than I’ve written in a long time. I’m still not over it tbh. 
> 
> Title from “Photograph” by Ed Sheeran.

Long before she shares an apartment or a life with Jake, years back when she was first promoted to detective, Amy shared desks with him.

She would watch in disgust as his desk accumulated clutter, as if it was his own personal dumpster, never mind that he had a perfectly serviceable garbage can right next to him. There’d been a few truly frightening moments when his mess threatened to spill on to her desk – and one time it did, his tower of scrawled paperwork toppling over to her desk and scattering the remnants of his chocolate crumb cake all over her work – she had yelled at him for twenty minutes about it and while he’d yelled back, he’d later presented her with a fresh pastry and an apology.

The frustration in being shackled to the worst desk partner shifted over time, weeks and months and years transforming them into friends, turning their desk arrangement into a source of comfort. She could always rely on him, could always look up from her work to see him at his, get a smile or a laugh or a second opinion, whatever she needed.

Which is why, even though she’s painfully aware of his absence in her life, she looks up in the middle of reviewing evidence on the B&E she’s working, habit moving her before she can think twice.

And she freezes.

There are no eyes to meet hers. There is just empty space, like their kitchen and their bed and every single place she turns expecting brown hair and a smile wide enough to capture the world and the kindest eyes she’s ever seen.

Her chest feels tight, like she’s a mouse in the talons of a hawk, slowly being crushed. She takes a breath, it’s shuddery, rattling, and she’s not going to break down, she’s already had her breakdowns back home, but somehow, _impossibly_ , she keeps discovering new holes in her life to crumble over, how could she forget that he wouldn’t be there, how could she look up expecting something when there was nothing –

“Amy?” It’s Charles, his voice small and distant but most importantly, there.

She forces her eyes away from the black hole, past it to where Charles is watching from his desk, brow tight with concern. She takes another breath, it rattles less, that’s good, then lets it out. She won’t cry in the middle of the bullpen. She’s got it together.

(She doesn’t but it’s better, necessary, to pretend.)  

“It’s –“ She can’t bring herself to lie to his face, to say that it’s okay or that it’s nothing, and she can’t tell the truth so she clamps her mouth shut instead.

Charles seems to understand though; his eyes reflect her sadness, his shoulders slouched in on his body. He hasn’t taken off the brown leather jacket, the one that matches Jake’s, since the day after the verdict, when he came into work wearing it like armor, and she’s caught him clumsily spinning the knife Rosa got him for Secret Santa a few years back. Their absence has left a hole in all their lives, not just Amy’s. Her chest aches again, a dull and deep kind of pain.

"We’ll get them out.”

“I know.” Amy says, forcing all her venom and fire into the two words and trying to ignore the uncertainty and fear and insecurity behind it. She has never hated anyone as much as she hates Hawkins, has never felt this type of burn rip through her, a snarling presence that still isn’t enough to distract from the spaces in her life.

Her eyes drop down to her phone, she can’t keep holding Charles’ gaze, not when he looks like he’s a few minutes away from crying, not when it’ll threaten her own composure if he does.  

She clicks the home button and a selfie of Jake and herself greets her, their faces contorted into goofy expressions, eyes squinted and teeth bared into grins. Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes sting and she bites down on her lip to keep from crying out. Her thumb ghosts across the screen, sliding along Jake’s cheek.

They’d laughed, while looking at the photo after, she remembers. She remembers the way he leaned against her shoulder, crowding closer for a better look, his body a solid warmth by her side. She remembers commenting on how attractive the two of them were. She remembers the way Jake’s laughter tickled her ear, setting off her own laughter, before he nuzzled her neck and murmured, entirely sincere, that they really were the most attractive couple. She’d laughed harder then as warmth curled in her chest.

It curls in her chest now too, the memories solid and real, his face in front of her forever frozen in a happier moment, even as the constant weight of the days presses on her shoulders and threatens to suppress it all. She doesn’t feel the weight right now though. The weight is nothing compared to the steel strengthening her spine or the hardness forming around the soft core of love at her center. It’ll protect her and it’ll let her do her job, let her succeed in protecting Jake and Rosa, let her snap cuffs around Hawkins’ wrists and lead her away.  

She looks at a photograph of Jake and it’s not like looking at his face, photos can never capture all of him, all the minute shifts in his expressions or the gleam in his eyes, let alone his voice. But it’s something.

It’s something.

\--

“I ran the prints and we got a hit. His name is Mark Weaver. Previous convictions include –” Jake’s voice trails off and she still hasn’t glanced up from the papers he handed her detailing their suspect, but after a minute passes with no words, she glances up. Her usually animated boyfriend is completely still, his fingers aren’t even tapping like they usually do when he’s thinking about something, they just hang slack by his sides, his eyes fixed on some point. 

Concern wells up in her. The only other times she’s seen him get this quiet, this static, have been after something horrible, after being taken hostage on Christmas, after Florida and Figgis, after half a dozen cases involving the gruesome murder of children, when he’s flashing back to those moments. 

“Jake?” She says, careful to keep her voice soft and steady.

He blinks and she watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows and then his eyes dart to her before settling elsewhere again. “You – you got it framed?“

Her eyes follow his gaze and then she realizes that he hasn’t been staring off into space, getting lost in memories, but at her desk. At the photograph still standing next to her phone even though he’s back, has been back for several days, sitting across from her where he belongs, and she doesn’t need a photo to stare at his face whenever she wants.

“Oh.” Amy exhales and then reaches over to take his hand, twining their fingers together. His fingers take a moment to respond, then they twitch and curl shut. Her thumb brushes along his knuckle until he looks away from the photograph to her face. “I missed you.” 

She’s told him those same words a hundred times already, gasped them in relief into his shoulder when he was finally released from prison, whispered them against every inch of his bare skin following each repetition with a butterfly-light kiss, murmured them into his ear while his hair tickled her face. But this time, it’s different, it’s said staring into warm brown eyes in the middle of the precinct on a relatively average afternoon.

Jake tugs on her hand and she stands smoothly, just barely bumping him, follows him out, grateful that no one else notices (or if they did, she’s grateful that they keep their mouths shut). She thinks he’ll take her to the evidence room where they’ve had plenty of private conversations, but he pulls her into the nearest broom closet instead.

The moment the door clicks shut, he presses her against it and seals their lips together. He kisses her fiercely, desperately, the pressure almost a little painful. His hands though, they’re gentle, running up her back to hold her closer and eliminate every space between them. Once the initial surprise wears off, Amy matches his ferocity, lets her arms wind around his shoulders, one hand sliding into his hair. She makes out some words in-between the kisses, “missed you” and “sorry” and possibly “love” mumbled all together, but she’s not paying enough attention to what he’s saying because his tongue is doing marvelous, distracting things.  

“Jake.” She gets out when his lips trail down to her neck, peppering lighter kisses along her skin. “We can’t – not here.”

He pulls back to give her the smallest smile before resting his forehead against hers, like he’s reluctant to leave any distance between them. His hands skim along her sides to settle on her hips, fingers splaying out wide. For a moment, they just stand there, breaths puffing out in unison.   

“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound very apologetic though that may be down to the way he’s still panting heavily and that his thumbs have started rubbing circles in the fabric of her slacks. “I know.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not like she can complain; she was an active participant in it.

“I just…” He pauses, swallows. She caresses the back of his neck, runs reassuring lines back and forth where his hair meets his skin. “I saw the photo and it hit me all over again. How much I missed you, how much _you_ missed me, it just really sucked.”

“I kept looking up and you weren’t there.” Her hand, the one not busy in his hair, grabs one of his and squeezes. _This isn’t your fault_ , it says, because she knows the way his thoughts will head if they’re not cut off fast enough, “I missed seeing your face across from me every day. The photo helped.”

“I missed seeing your face too.” Jake nods, her head bobbing along with his motion. “I kept a picture of you in my cell.”

Her heart pounds in her ears. It’s not like his words are particularly surprising, she knows how much he missed her, he’s told her just as many times as she’s told him, but hearing this is something else. The knowledge that they both kept a photograph of the other close settles in her head like a warm blanket, encompassing her in a sphere of comfort and love. She leans closer and presses her lips softly to his, keeping the kiss brief and chaste.

“I’m surprised you still have it there when you can just be staring at my handsome face.” Jake comments after.

He knows full well that she _has_ stared at him, a lot more frequently since his return than before it, he’s caught her enough times at it. But then, she’s caught him staring just as often. If once they would have teased each other for it, lately they’ve simply been returning the stares with tender gazes of their own.

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice earlier.” She nudges their joined hands into his side. “What a detective you are.”

He nudges her back in the ribs and she’s far more ticklish than he is there and he _knows_ that and she can’t contain a small squeal from escaping her lips. He grins triumphant, smug, but his soft eyes betray him.

“Are you going to keep it?”  

Amy hasn’t given it much thought before now; the photograph has become as much a fixture on her desk as her stack of multi-colored Post-it notes. It’s true that her desk is largely utilitarian – while Jake’s desk collects toys like it’s stockpiling for a global shortage on colorful knickknacks, her desk’s contents are meticulously chosen and entirely professional, everything serves some purpose in pushing her work forward or it’s gone – but she’s grown fond of it.

“I think I’ll leave it.”

His lips curl up into a smile, his eyes taken with wonder, and it takes her back to right before he said he loved her, it’s the same face with the same soft eyes. Like he’s just been given the best present in the world, like he can’t believe this is his life, and like always, it makes her stomach swoon and her body flush and her mind clear.

If she hadn’t been sure before, the look of awe on his face would have sealed the deal. She’s never getting rid of that photograph.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to cry with me about the photo or talk peraltiago/b99/anything else, you can find me on [Tumblr](http://proofthatihaveaheart.tumblr.com/).


End file.
